In countries throughout the world, a postal customer may obtain postage from the postal authority in several ways, including the purchase of stamps and the use of a postage meter. When a postage meter is used, there is a security concern since the meter is dispensing value, and without sufficient security, the value could be stolen from a meter by unscrupulous parties. Concerns include use of the meter to dispense postage for which the Postal Authority has not been compensated and use of the meter which was not authorized by the lawful operator of the meter.
These security concerns have always been present, even when a postage meter was essentially a purely mechanical letterpress. As the postage meter evolved through the 20th century to an electronic configuration, letter-press printing was represented in a rotary drum movement impressing an image onto a mailpiece, as well as a flat-bed approach meshing a mailpiece on a platen assembly against a printing die to produce an image onto a mailpiece. The postage meter is now taking on a new role of digitally printing postage, thus no longer requiring letter-press printing.
When a postage meter utilizes letter-press printing, security concerns are typically addressed, in part, by the physical attributes of the meter. Not only do the attributes of the meter (case material, etc.) provide protection against the unauthorized use of the meter, the attributes also provide a means to detect whether an attempt has been made to make unauthorized use of the meter evidenced by visible deliberate damage to the meter's case. With evolution of the “meter,” greater security against fraudulent attacks on the meter is needed. With the increase in the availability of elaborate technologies and sophisticated hacking capabilities, Postal Authorities around the world, including the United States Postal Service, are concerned with the ability to defraud the Postal Authorities by falsifying postal indicium, particularly when such indicium is digitally printed.
One approach which as been taken to increase the security of evolved meters is to employ cryptographics to the creation and application of the postal indicia. In order for this approach to be an effective security measure, however, there must be sufficient physical security for the cryptographic processing and memory to eliminate a successful fraudulent attack on the system. In order for this to be a commercially viable approach, cryptographic processing must be performed in a timely manner.